pocket the difference
ASDA has been taking advantage of free Govt. sponsored workers too. Notably so during the Christmas period and despite assurances these work placements wouldn't have any impact on existing employees - it lead to them losing their overtime.
it's better to be a shelf stacker than a 'job snob' sez IDS
In a breath-taking display of snobbishness himself - IDS has a little rant about his workfare scheme...
According to him:
Apparently ALL young British people are sitting around dreaming of being reality tv show stars...
A shelf-stacker is of greater value to society than someone of the 'commentating elite'... (whoever they are? Do professional journalists count? The next time he's on TV or Radio will he be saying to the interviewer 'a shelf stacker is of greater value than you?) - and it's apparently insulting to professional shelf-stackers who do a worthwhile job -except that -er, an unemployed yoof with no qualifications can do it for far less than minimum wage. Sooo is it a worth-while job or not? If so then why isn't the yoof being paid the going rate for it in the first place. And does it really take EIGHT WEEKS to train someone to stack shelves?
I think we need a whole lot less schemes and a lot more jobs being created actually.
According to him:
Apparently ALL young British people are sitting around dreaming of being reality tv show stars...
A shelf-stacker is of greater value to society than someone of the 'commentating elite'... (whoever they are? Do professional journalists count? The next time he's on TV or Radio will he be saying to the interviewer 'a shelf stacker is of greater value than you?) - and it's apparently insulting to professional shelf-stackers who do a worthwhile job -except that -er, an unemployed yoof with no qualifications can do it for far less than minimum wage. Sooo is it a worth-while job or not? If so then why isn't the yoof being paid the going rate for it in the first place. And does it really take EIGHT WEEKS to train someone to stack shelves?
I think we need a whole lot less schemes and a lot more jobs being created actually.
worklessness programmes
Rising unemployment puts Cameron's work programme in the spotlight
The Guardian gets exclusive access to the scheme to get people off benefits – and finds in Hull, some barriers are hard to break.
Why is that then?
Indisputable facts:
1. There are more work seekers than there are jobs. And jobs are diminishing - not increasing.
2. This means potential employers can be as picky about who they employ as they like - there is no obligation for them to take on any long term unemployed person if they don't want to. Yet there are plenty of scope for exploitation. Hence work for free, Interns or forced Work-for-welfare schemes are on the rise. Which in turn means there is even less incentive for employers to take on paid staff as they have access to a ever increasing turn over of free workers.
3. There's been a long term culture of demonizing the underclass, the unemployed, the disabled, etc. - why? simply because it's a lot easier to blame the victim. Every time there's been an economic downturn there's a very brief spell of sympathy for those people who find themselves unemployed for the first time - but which quickly turns to hostility. The mainstream media enthusiastically colludes with this.
If they want to halve unemployment - it's simple - stage 1.: divide the area's unemployed people into two groups. Stage 2: train one half as employment advisors - who then can be employed on fixed short term contracts to teach the other unemployed half job searching skills and train them to be employment advisors. Stage 3: When their contracts end and they become unemployed - employ the now newly trained-up other half to teach the other half job searching skills and re-train how to be employment advisors. Repeat as often as necessary.
If they want to halve unemployment - it's simple - stage 1.: divide the area's unemployed people into two groups. Stage 2: train one half as employment advisors - who then can be employed on fixed short term contracts to teach the other unemployed half job searching skills and train them to be employment advisors. Stage 3: When their contracts end and they become unemployed - employ the now newly trained-up other half to teach the other half job searching skills and re-train how to be employment advisors. Repeat as often as necessary.
workfare or state sanctioned slavery?
So exactly how many graduates do Poundland/Tescos/Primark need to stack their shelves for free? And what's the point of even encouraging kids to go to University if this is the treatment they can expect at the end of it?
Say hello to the 21st century version of neo-feudalism.
Graduate 'made to stack shelves' seeks judicial review
Public Interest Lawyers.
I saw them discuss this news item on 'Loose Women' - and they really laid into this young woman - in the new mentality of 'blame the victim' and demonizing the unemployed as 'dole scroungers' that's currently all the rage at the moment (I notice there's not so much open rage at the bankers who've taken so much money out of the economy in their bail outs that whole economies are faltering.. but I start to digress).
This woman wasn't being lazy - she already was working voluntarily at a museum - which was a lot more in line in her chosen career path and was giving her experience and references than working in a discount supermaket. But they were forcing her to work at Poundland and give up the museum position. But that's the point now - after a year of unemployment the 'welfare' state now takes it upon it's self to destroy a person's spirit (not that it isn't already damaged by being unemployed for so long) - you're expected then to take up ANY job... the big lie here of course is that there are millions upon millions of 'ANY' McJobs out there... but there simply aren't. (Otherwise wouldn't Poundland, Tescos etc. be employing people properly instead of offering 'work placements') And this is a young woman who has played the game - she's gone to school, got good grades - gone on to University, taken on the student loans and the debts and found herself voluntary work and after all that - her reward... a slap in the face. Didn't anyone think if she ever wanted to stack shelves as a career she need not have put herself into debt and done all that work... Why wasn't the museum work seen as part of the scheme?
No wonder the youth of today are getting angrier and angrier and occupying here, there and everywhere. They have justified outrage on their side. I'm sure it doesn't help matters when a bunch of 'resting' actresses and has-been TV personalities get paid to sit in a TV studio and pour venomous scorn over someone who's a victim of a society that's disintegrating around everyone's ears merely for wanting to better herself and standing up for her rights.
Say hello to the 21st century version of neo-feudalism.
Public Interest Lawyers.
I saw them discuss this news item on 'Loose Women' - and they really laid into this young woman - in the new mentality of 'blame the victim' and demonizing the unemployed as 'dole scroungers' that's currently all the rage at the moment (I notice there's not so much open rage at the bankers who've taken so much money out of the economy in their bail outs that whole economies are faltering.. but I start to digress).
This woman wasn't being lazy - she already was working voluntarily at a museum - which was a lot more in line in her chosen career path and was giving her experience and references than working in a discount supermaket. But they were forcing her to work at Poundland and give up the museum position. But that's the point now - after a year of unemployment the 'welfare' state now takes it upon it's self to destroy a person's spirit (not that it isn't already damaged by being unemployed for so long) - you're expected then to take up ANY job... the big lie here of course is that there are millions upon millions of 'ANY' McJobs out there... but there simply aren't. (Otherwise wouldn't Poundland, Tescos etc. be employing people properly instead of offering 'work placements') And this is a young woman who has played the game - she's gone to school, got good grades - gone on to University, taken on the student loans and the debts and found herself voluntary work and after all that - her reward... a slap in the face. Didn't anyone think if she ever wanted to stack shelves as a career she need not have put herself into debt and done all that work... Why wasn't the museum work seen as part of the scheme?
No wonder the youth of today are getting angrier and angrier and occupying here, there and everywhere. They have justified outrage on their side. I'm sure it doesn't help matters when a bunch of 'resting' actresses and has-been TV personalities get paid to sit in a TV studio and pour venomous scorn over someone who's a victim of a society that's disintegrating around everyone's ears merely for wanting to better herself and standing up for her rights.
age of greed
New York Book review:
Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present
by Jeff Madrick
Which tells you all you need to know about the current economic crisis - and why it keeps happening again and again...
by Jeff Madrick
Which tells you all you need to know about the current economic crisis - and why it keeps happening again and again...
work work work
So what the hell is this obsession with work all of a sudden? The economy stagnant. Unemployment levels are getting progressively worse, with the jobs pool shrinking - and yet we've got the Government - instead of doing things that might help create jobs are just being complete dicks...
telling GPs to tell long-term jobless to find work and that's not enough they want to stop GPs being able to write sick notes... because a panel of assessors are going to be much more able to tell with just a cursory glance and a few questions if someone is able to work or not... even though it turns out they're entirely wrong 40% of the time (the error rate is very possibly a lot higher as many people just can't face or are incapable of enduring the appeal process - and quite a few people out of hopelessness and despair kill themselves. [I imagine the more sociopathic elements of our Govt. see that as a welcome saving on state provision - except they'd never be caught saying it out loud knowing it would electoral poison.]
Then I stumbled upon this:
Then I stumbled upon this:
Welfare reform and the US insurance giant Unum
now I get it. It becomes clear - there's a little propaganda war going now - painting the disabled and sick as scroungers and setting the workers against them - all as a distraction while behind the scenes they're establishing channels for National Insurance payments / taxpayers money to be pumped directly into foreign owned companies Atos and Unum.sorry
UC Davis chancellor sorry for pepper spray incident
UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain denied Katehi had instructed police to use force in removing tents last week. "There was a concern that letting them remain and letting the number grow could be a health hazard. The whole idea was to end it peaceably," she said.---yeah, it's funny how protesters now keep being classed as a 'health hazard' - if memory serves Nazi propaganda used to say the same thing about the jews... they even made 'cute' little newsreel films about that featuring rats and vermin and likening them to jews in the ghetto.
"Ohhhh you dirty protesters - you're unsanitary - have a face-full of pepper spray - it's just like disinfectant."
Stop targeting this imaginary army of long-term sick | John Harris
Stop targeting this imaginary army of long-term sick | John Harris | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
"The sickness absence review will only lead to incapacitated people limply tramping the streets looking for non-existent jobs."
There is something altogether a bit authoritarian about all of this... first the faceless assessment panels, then next we'll have gulags , work camps and yes, even death camps before long. Not that people aren't already killing themselves out of poverty and desperation.
"The sickness absence review will only lead to incapacitated people limply tramping the streets looking for non-existent jobs."
There is something altogether a bit authoritarian about all of this... first the faceless assessment panels, then next we'll have gulags , work camps and yes, even death camps before long. Not that people aren't already killing themselves out of poverty and desperation.
Telegraph: Taxpayer to take on mortgage risks of first-time buyers
Taxpayers will underwrite mortgages totalling hundreds of millions of pounds under plans to “unblock” the housing market and revive the flagging economy.
Mmmmm - what a good idea. Let's see, it just needs a catchy phrase to promote it - how about a 'sub-prime mortgage'? Yes, that's good. And a private (of course) company to run the scheme - there's a lot of experts in this sort of field looking for work at the moment - pass me that US company phone book - yes, Fannie Mae. Excellent. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
popcorn maker
at last i got myself a popcorn maker - I've wanted a popcorn maker for
years. I wanted one even more so after recently trying to make proper popcorn in a
pan - which now has burnt bits on the bottom I can't get rid of. [And whatever happened to Brillo pads? I haven't been able t find any.]
Anyway - my first attempt resulted in lots of burning and smoke - I had no idea how
much popcorn would come out of the thing - so my plastic container filled up really quickly and there was a log jam (corn
jam?) - and burning - le sigh. However... practice makes perfect... and I guess smoke -
lots and lots of smoke...
Why Are Bankers Still Being Treated As Beltway Royalty?
Why? maybe because they now fund the politicians?
Arianna Huffington: Why Are Bankers Still Being Treated As Beltway Royalty?
Arianna Huffington: Why Are Bankers Still Being Treated As Beltway Royalty?
Occupy Times Square
"I am going to start my life as an adult in debt and that's not fair," student Nathaniel Brown told Reuters Television. "Millions of teenagers across the country are going to start their futures in debt, while all of these corporations are getting money fed all the time and none of us can get any."
Oh really? And what has our own Govt. decided it's a good idea to do from next year? Allow the Universities to treble tuition fees. Gosh, that's sensible - that's not going to have an impact on whether kids go to University or not at all.
Occupy Times Square: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Swarm Midtown (PHOTOS)
Oh really? And what has our own Govt. decided it's a good idea to do from next year? Allow the Universities to treble tuition fees. Gosh, that's sensible - that's not going to have an impact on whether kids go to University or not at all.
Occupy Times Square: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Swarm Midtown (PHOTOS)
Oh Oliver - you litter bug
The Daily Mirror spotted the Minister dumping his read paper work all over the place and the story has just taken off. The BBC - the Guardian - It's like bloody amateur hour, these clowns shouldn't be allowed to hold public office - look at the utter contempt he shows his constituents by doing this . As if it wasn't bad enough with his previous reported remark on not wanting poor families from Sheffield going on flights to foreign holidays.
Vile man.
Vile man.
Talking Points for the "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters - October 10, 2011
Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: Talking Points for the "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters - October 10, 2011
The Market Has Spoken: Austerity Is Bad for Business
How do feel about a Trillion Dollar coin? Imagine going to buy a morning newspaper or a coffee with that.
The Market Has Spoken: Austerity Is Bad for Business
How do feel about a Trillion Dollar coin? Imagine going to buy a morning newspaper or a coffee with that.
UK unemployment total reaches 17-year high
It's amazing. I mean I guess people must fall for this blatant propaganda otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it. For the past 18 months the coalition has been blaming the country's economic woes variously on Gordon Brown, the snow, the Royal Wedding and now it's US and the EU.
An oft repeated cliché has been 'the mess Labour left us in' blithely ignoring the fact that Gordon Brown faced with the near global financial melt down and credit cruch had to put in emergency measures to stop the country going bankrupt. And his measures were working - there was growth, even the deficit wasn't as much as they feared- etc. Osbourne gets in, with only the one single idea - cut spending, and the economy flat-lines and the excuses start flowing thick and fast.
Why's that then? Oh, you can tell the Tories just thought we were in for just a normal recession - a bit of a blip and soon things would be back to normal - the housing bubble would continue, and the private sector would have their choice of newly unemployed and desperate people they could employ at new bargain low rates etc.
Turns out they've misread the situation completely... and they're starting to make little squeaks about how bad things are... but you can tell it hasn't really hit home yet. The last thirty years of the Milton Friedman school of economics is over, it achieved it's aim of making the rich a lot richer (which is why there's been many vested interests in keeping it going for as long as it has - since money buys power and influence and even more money buys even more power and more influence) but now it's got nowhere else to go. It won - and everyone except the super rich lost. Except - they're now about to lose too - because ordinary people are finally waking up and they're not going to take it any more. There is not going to be 'business as usual' for much longer - and our complacent, out-of-touch politicians are still asleep at the wheel.
BBC News - UK unemployment total reaches 17-year high
An oft repeated cliché has been 'the mess Labour left us in' blithely ignoring the fact that Gordon Brown faced with the near global financial melt down and credit cruch had to put in emergency measures to stop the country going bankrupt. And his measures were working - there was growth, even the deficit wasn't as much as they feared- etc. Osbourne gets in, with only the one single idea - cut spending, and the economy flat-lines and the excuses start flowing thick and fast.
Why's that then? Oh, you can tell the Tories just thought we were in for just a normal recession - a bit of a blip and soon things would be back to normal - the housing bubble would continue, and the private sector would have their choice of newly unemployed and desperate people they could employ at new bargain low rates etc.
Turns out they've misread the situation completely... and they're starting to make little squeaks about how bad things are... but you can tell it hasn't really hit home yet. The last thirty years of the Milton Friedman school of economics is over, it achieved it's aim of making the rich a lot richer (which is why there's been many vested interests in keeping it going for as long as it has - since money buys power and influence and even more money buys even more power and more influence) but now it's got nowhere else to go. It won - and everyone except the super rich lost. Except - they're now about to lose too - because ordinary people are finally waking up and they're not going to take it any more. There is not going to be 'business as usual' for much longer - and our complacent, out-of-touch politicians are still asleep at the wheel.
BBC News - UK unemployment total reaches 17-year high
Road-building plan takes us back to the last Tory government | George Monbiot
It seems that the door to new roads has swung open again. The Conservatives have long had an interest in getting people off public transport and into cars. Public transport is often unionised. It pools resources and encourages social mixing and collective action. Car driving, by contrast, isolates us from other people and encourages us to see society – pedestrians, bicycles, other cars, speed limits, traffic calming – as an obstacle. The car drives us to the right. It is a powerful but overlooked agent of political change.Road-building plan takes us back to the last Tory government | George Monbiot
I'll take this as proof that the Tories haven't a single new idea in their heads - they just want to carry on what Thatcher started in the Eighties. They'll be re-inventing the Poll Tax soon mark my words.
UK could introduce 'fat tax',
Er...
UK could introduce 'fat tax', says David Cameron | Politics | guardian.co.uk
"Cameron said drastic action was needed to prevent health costs soaring and life expectancy falling."But both the Conservatives and Labour keep claiming people are living longer and because of that they need to raise the retirement age and get people to pay more into their pensions to get a lot less out in payments - but now here's Cameron is contradicting that by saying life expectancy is going down... (or is that only amongst poor people - and it's the rich people who are living longer?) and we need to tax people more to stop that... Er... they just want more money off us for nothing - that's the real motivation isn't it? This is BS. On and btw - more and more food scientists keep coming up with new research saying saturated fats aren't anywhere as near bad for us as we thought.
UK could introduce 'fat tax', says David Cameron | Politics | guardian.co.uk
Wall Street protest movement spreads
Wall Street protest movement spreads to cities across US, Canada and Europe | World news | The Guardian:
[And what has our wonderful coalition Govt. done with regard to Tuition fees? Allowed them to triple and thinks it's OK that graduates will be saddled with a massive sudent loan debt for what will prove to be for the rest of their lives.]
Other websites publicising the protests have also become hugely popular. One, named wearethe99percent, in reference to the statistic that 1% of the US population owns a third of the wealth, posts pictures of people holding handwritten messages daily.
One said: "Last year, my 60-year-old mother was evicted. This year I graduated with my master's. I am unemployed with over $120,000 in student loans. I no longer believe the American Dream is for me because … We are the 99 per cent."
Another person holds up a sign which reads: "When you're young, you're told you can be anything, I'm sick of being fed lies. I graduated with a BA in 2009 and I've been searching for a job ever since. My generation is lost, depressed, in debt, struggling. We are taking unpaid internships and temporary contracts with no health insurance in desperation. We will forever be living at our parent's house."
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